Cross-posted on Business@CUA
By Guest Blogger: Julie Larkin CUA, Student Experience Manager , MSBA Graduate, and Founder of Girl Talk.
"Julie, what are you talking about? You just started a business!" I took a minute to ponder this, and then slowly allowed the realization to sink in.
I had just finished explaining to Stew McHie, the director of the Masters of Science in Business Analysis Program at Catholic University, how I had never pictured myself in business. I detailed my experiences studying psychology and working in Campus Ministry as a student minister. Surely my vocation was counseling or something that involved directly caring for others. I never imagined that my life would have anything to do with crunching numbers all day. (Little did I know what business as a "force for good" actually meant!)
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I then went on to describe to him the program that I had started during my time as a student minister, called Girl Talk. This organization began in March 2012, after some jarring experiences with my freshmen female residents involving attempted suicide, sexual assault, heartbreak, and eating disorders. I heard story after story from these women of loneliness and their struggles with self-worth. No one will ever love me. She's way prettier than I am. I can't even look in the mirror I'm so ugly. Sound familiar? It broke my heart to hear them beating themselves up and doubting their self-worth to the point of self-harm. These women believed that they were the only ones who had ever felt like that, but they needed to know that they were not alone...Enter Girl Talk.
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Back to Mr. Business. I finished explaining this whole history of Girl Talk, and then Professor McHie gave me a huge smile, and shared this little secret with me—I had inadvertently created a business without even realizing it! My passion for these women in helping them recognize their self-worth had fueled the flame for an organization that had the potential to reach women far and wide beyond my expectations! I may not have been looking to make a profit necessarily, but I still needed to understand the essential business principles of management, marketing, finance, and accounting in order for Girl Talk to grow and succeed. So how would I help women?
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Girl Talk Launch Party Invite |
So many women will now have the opportunity to recognize their self-worth and become their best selves, thanks to this discovery of business as my vocation.
I guess business really can be a force for good.
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